Word: second
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...loser in the election, however, is Primakov. Few now remember his announcement on the eve of the election that he would run for President. Primakov's bloc will end up with a respectable number of Duma seats. But it had much greater expectations: it was supposed to be the second largest group in the Duma, the party of the leader in waiting...
First question: who is Tom Ripley? He is the lead character in five novels by Patricia Highsmith and now, as incarnated by Matt Damon, a beguiling movie icon in the making. Second question: Who cares? For a start, an international coterie of readers spread across four decades. To that devoted coterie, add Anthony Minghella. "Ripley is one of the most interesting characters in postwar fiction," Minghella says, and he ought to know. The writer-director has spent three years, ever since he finished his Oscar-winning epic The English Patient, puzzling out the emotional vectors of crime fiction's most...
...that easily. He devises two characters who fall for the killer and get in his way: a sweet, rich buttinsky (Blanchett) and a gentle homosexual (Davenport). Can he kiss them, or kiss them off, without bumping them off? We won't tell, but we will say that Tom has second thoughts about his addiction to killing the things he loves. The film lets Tom off the hook for the murders of Dickie and Freddie. Then it creates a new hook and leaves you wondering if Ripley will hang from...
Highsmith's second coup was Ripley himself--a fastidious fellow of refined if acquired tastes who is utterly unimpeded by conscience. Tom is a sportsman. "Risks were what made the whole thing fun," he muses. His lack of guilt or shame makes Tom a blithe, resourceful fellow, totally at ease with the man he's become...
Other movies this season have bigger stars, higher budgets, pricier effects, deeper tans. But if you're looking for a complex weave of word and image, and an early clue to where film might go in its second century, your Christmas shopping can begin and end with this towering Titus...